Swedish

Screenshots

Portfolio Scan
Pick Winning Stocks

Optimal Traders Portfolio Scan is the perfect feature when it comes to helping you find stocks that meet your investment criteria and help you grow your investing and trading profits. Similar but more basic services are available online for free on many sites, but the features of Optimal Traders Portfolio Scan make it one of the most powerful analytic services available.

• You can combine several criteria and add weight to each criterion based on its importance.
• You can include multiple price growth (trend) criteria with different time ranges in the same scan.
• Include expected returns based on average returns for objects with similar price behaviour.
• You can include artificial neural network forecasting in your scan.
• You can handle risk by minimizing or maximizing Volatility.
• You can detect changes in stock behavior with the Short-Term Volatility Factor.
• Diversify your portfolio by measuring Beta values.
• Estimate predictability with the Hurst Exponent.

 

Weight

The weight of each factor (criterion) determines the importance of the factor when analyzing. You can include several factors in your analysis and add a weight to each factor. You could, for instance, add the weight 30% to the short term trend, weight 20% to the medium term trend, weight 25% to volatility and weight 25% to the Short-Term Volatility Factor.

The larger the weight is of a factor, the more important it will become when rating each equity in your portfolio in the result table. A weight of 50% makes the factor twice as important as a weight of 25%.

Only integers are allowed.

Normalize Weights

When you normalize the weights they are scaled so that their sum equals 100%. Normalization of the weights only affects the numeric size of the scores, not the results.

You do not have to normalize the weights before a scan.

Factor Normalization

Normalization maps each factor to the same range making comparisons between factors easier. The disadvantage is that you can not read out the exact values of the factors.

Normally, you do not have to change this option.

No Normalization: The factors are not normalized, meaning that they are not altered in any way. This can be good if you want to see the exact Beta or Hurst values for every equity, but can make it more difficult to estimate good weight values.

Absolute Normalization: The factor values are scaled to roughly the same mean (0 %) and the same standard deviation (100 %) which makes it easier to assign good weight values. The normalization is independent of the current portfolio, which means that you can compare results between different portfolios.
Note that absolute values for the factors will no longer be valid as all values are scaled (with the same amount for all equities). This means that Trend: %/Day values only correspond to real trend per day values if you have not normalized the factors.

Relative Normalization: Normalizes each factor to the same mean (0 %) and standard deviation (100 %). Makes it easy to assign weights, but prevents a readout of the exact values of the factors.
Note that absolute values for the factors will no longer be valid as all values are scaled (with the same amount for all equities). This means that Trend: %/Day values only correspond to real trend per day values if you have not normalized the factors.

Start Scan

Calculates a score for each equity in your portfolio based on your settings, sorts the equities after their scores and presents the result in the result table to the right.

The Result is presented for each stock as a value which will be larger the better the stock has performed by your criteria. The better a stock has performed, the higher it will make it in the result table. It is of course always advisable to check the charts of the stocks which have performed well.

Save Results

Click to save the result table to an Excel or a text file.

Save Settings

Saves all settings of the Portfolio Scan function. Notice that you have to click Save in the main window of Optimal Trader as well to keep your settings until the next time you use Optimal Trader.

 

Score Result Table

The result table presents the scores of each equity according to your criteria and the values of all factors. You may sort the table by specific factors by clicking the header cell of the corresponding column in the table.

If you are interested in the absolute values of the factors and not just their relative values, you may select No Normalization before you click Start Scan. Note that it scores can be biased towards a specific factor and that it makes estimation of good weight values more difficult.

 

Global Time Range

Notice that Portfolio Scan can only use the time range limited by the equity with the shortest time range in your current portfolio. This time range is called the Global Time Range. If you have one stock with a price history of 100 days it will thus limit the possibilities of an analysis. The same applies if you have a stock that has not been updated the last ten days. You can then only make an analysis with data up to ten days ago.

If you cannot make a time range setting for a factor because the global time range is too short you will have to remove the equities with the shortest available price history from your portfolio to make the global time range larger.

Notice that the time ranges expressed in Optimal Trader are market days, that is 252 days amount to one calendar year.

 

Examples

Example 1

You would like to pick a mutual fund which has performed well the last month and at the same time also has advanced above average the last six months. At the same time the fund should have a low risk (low volatility). With Portfolio Scan you can sort a number of funds after these criteria and pick out a suitable fund for investing.

Example 2

You would like to find a small-cap stock with potential of growing into a big cap stock. Your criteria may be that the price should have advanced highly the last three weeks, and advanced well the last three months. To maximize possibilities of high returns you want to pick a stock with high volatility and whose volatility has increased the last month. In addition you can also maximize or minimize the beta coefficient depending on the situation. With Portfolio Scan you can fill a portfolio with small-cap stocks and find a stock which fulfils your criteria.

Example 3

You would like to invest in a Russian mutual fund, but do not know from which investment company. If you fill your portfolio with many different Russian mutual funds you can with the help of Portfolio Scan find the mutual fund which will fit your criteria the best.

Example 4
You would like to find stocks for which the neural network predicts high returns. You would also like to favor stocks which are easier to forecast (high predictability). Thus you apply a weight of 60% to the neural network and a weight of 40% to the Hurst Exponent.